I am not making this part up. As soon as the word Sosa is out of Himes' mouth, Sosa hits a home run. Not just a home run, a screaming home run. A no-doubt-about-it home run, beyond the left-field wall. You wonder if it is going to come down before it reaches the Superstition Mountains.

Himes admires Sosa's saunter around the bases and does not gloat. Sosa is his pet, you know.

"How many home runs did we hit last year?" Himes asks. I should have brought a crib sheet. I shrug but remember that the wind blew in a lot last summer.

"104," Himes says. "I will go out on a limb and say we will hit more than 104 home runs this year." Without Andre Dawson, he does not add.

I will go out on a limb and say this: If the Cubs do not hit more than 104 home runs, they will not win their usual 77 games, never mind contending for the division so conveniently abandoned by the incumbent and scattered Pirates.

By Himes' math, the Cubs will hit at least 112 home runs because, according to my notes, the eight starters are going to get 14 home runs exactly.

As manager Jim Lefebvre was saying just the day before, "Well, it's a plan, anyway."

And how lamentable is the departure of Maddux? One day you have a Cy Young winner, and the next you don't.

"Let's just examine how this worked out," Himes says. Isn't it always the way? I knew how many games Maddux had won and he doesn't ask. 20.

Himes forms with his hands an imaginary pile of money. This was Maddux's money. Maddux didn't take it in time. Now this money belongs to Jose Guzman and Dan Plesac and Greg Hibbard and Randy Myers.

"If this had been a trade," Himes swears, "I would have had to take it."

These are the convictions of spring, that the starting pitching is deeper, the bullpen is better, the power is there and that the best darned infield in baseball is just waiting for a reunion.

Most expensive infield, anyway.

Himes' observations are being made on a day in which the Cubs' $16 million infield is mostly out of sight. Ryne Sandberg is watching. Shawon Dunston is nursing his sore back. Mark Grace is maintaining his health and his sense of humor, but he is not with the team. Steve Buechele is actually at his post, which is third base, but the ink is still fresh on the note from his nurse, and who knows about tomorrow?

The salaries of the proxies would not pay Sandberg's taxes.

This is the kind of fragile creation this Cub team is, top-heavy or tip-poor.